Writing, gaming, and more!

SaSS:R (tabletop game system)

SaSS:R–pronounced ‘sassier’–is the (I hope) final version of my own homebrew gaming system, SaSS. It is specifically the version in development for my Worlds of Rozal setting, so it involves mechs, diesel-/steam-punk, and fey–including giants that dwarf a mech. I really like the setting, and since I appear unable to write fiction thanks to health and medication troubles, I have been working pretty consistently at it. The rules for game play are already pretty well defined, so other than a few tweaks to fit the setting and new ideas from DCC, I have been working on revamping the character creation to be more how I have always wanted it to be.

When I first thought up SaSS, I wanted it to be a combination of the character creation of Mongoose Traveller with the game mechanics of Unisystem, added in with some ideas from Cortex Classic and mapped onto the d20 die made famous by the most popular fantasy roleplaying game in history (which I will not link to.) But along the way, I lost my way and abandoned the Traveller “randomly-rolled character skills” I wanted to incorporate, because I could not see how to make it work (mainly because I was attaching too many skills to each Profession [consider a Profession as a class-lite].)

During my most recent interruption in my main medication, however, I got a stroke of brilliance which solved all my problems, and in a mania I wrote the outline of the new version of SaSS. (Now if only I could manage to trigger manic periods of fiction writing…) Now character creation is a mashup of Unisystem, Mongoose Traveller, and Dungeon Crawl Classics, with a very light-handed point allocation system that feeds into the random-rolling-skills.

Let me show you what I mean.

This is the entry for the “Open Profession” Artist (that is, the profession that has no entry barriers). Each player gets a number of generic dice to roll for Skills from their character’s Culture, Religion, and Profession(s), and once they pick each of those they can allocate those generic dice to get the specific dice to roll on the tables for their Skills. I might be a little self-congratulatory, but I think it is an elegant solution.

Now, of course, because I have DCC on the mind, I have also made tables for randomly selecting Culture, Religion, and (Open) Profession(s). Let me give you a glimpse.

Because nothing speaks my language so well as a nicely formatted table or spreadsheet. (Cultures.)

This culture list based upon the major powers of the Worlds of Rozal, which have been in a status quo (as of the 1907 start date) for 45 years. Unaligned represents the so-called “Liberty League”, the group of countries otherwise unaffiliated with any major inter-dimensional power.

I cannot tell you how hard I struggled not to ‘weight’ this table in favor of some over others. (Religions.)

The religions list is largely self-explanatory, I think, except for the Azatlani faith, which is an Aztecan-Christian syncretic religion involving lots of bloodshed and occasional human sacrifice (I swear, it makes sense when it is explained, for all that it is a very unnatural combination in the real world.)

This one was both the easiest and the hardest. The easisest because it required the fewest choices. The hardest because I kept having to rework the formatting. (Open Professions.)

The Open Professions again seem rather self-explanatory. Some of them come with special abilities or special equipment, but each one is much the same as the Artist one I included above.

Anyway, prayers are still appreciated, for all that I am doing better than I was a few days ago. I am possibly going to be off my medications again for a few days, so everything is getting mixed up all over again. Let me know if you find any of this interesting. As my favorite online video producer says over and over (and over), I do this because I enjoy it, but feedback is much appreciated and enjoyed as well!